If you win an Oscar, you get a shiny trophy, the recognition of your peers, all kinds of media coverage, and usually a better bargaining position for your next project. But what happens if you lose? Well, at very least, your kid gets to go to clown school.

Distinctive Assets is an American marketing firm that every year hands out "goodie bags" to the people who were nominated for Academy Awards but didn't win, and as it turns out, there's a pretty amazing selection of treats in store for the folks who didn't come in first.

This year's package includes a professional class in circus skills for the nominee's child, athletic shoes that have been customized with original artwork, a week at an upscale health spa, sessions with acupuncture and aromatherapy experts, and a year of VIP service at Heathrow Airport in London. And if you're brave enough, you can also use the "Vampire Face Lift" included in the package, a cosmetic procedure that "blood derived growth factors" -- whatever that

There's a long-standing tradition at the Academy Awards -- at the end of the night, after hours of waiting, the winner of Best Picture is finally announced. After a brief acceptance speech, the show's producers and host then scramble to end the program as quickly as humanly possible. But this year is going to be different.

For the 2013 Oscars telecast, producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan promise to close out the program with a splashy musical number featuring host Seth MacFarlane and singer and actress Kristin Chenoweth. It should be a fitting closer to a show dedicated to the close relationship between music and the movies.

Jennifer Lawrence and filmmaker David O. Russell are looking to make lightning strike twice.

Their first collaboration, "Silver Linings Playbook" proved to be both a box office hit and an awards season darling. The movie is up for eight Academy Awards this Sunday, including a likely Best Actress trophy for Lawrence and directing and screenwriting nominations for Russell. So it's not terribly surprising that Lawrence has signed on to Russell's next project "The Ends of the Earth."

"Zero Dark Thirty" has earned rave reviews from critics, been nominated for five Academy Awards (including Best Picture), and become a surprise box office hit. But that doesn't mean everyone likes it. Though the movie has yet to officially screen in Pakistan, where the real-life raid to capture Osama bin Laden took place and much of the film is set, those Pakistanis who have seen it are not happy with the finished product.

"Zero Dark Thirty" has been circulating in Pakistan on bootleg DVDs and through pirated internet downloads, and while it should come as no surprise that many object to the film's political slant, a number of commentators have also called the picture's factual accuracy into question.

Some actors make a point of hob-nobbing with famous and high-profile folks in the industry and getting their picture in the tabloids as often as possible. Then there's Denzel Washington.

In an interview with Xan Brooks published on The Guardian.co.uk, Washington announced, "Actually, even within the industry, I don't have any actor friends. My friends are old friends. One's an ex-music guy, the other's a restaurant owner and the other's an ex-pro ballplayer."